California had been, and I think was, in 1860, represented in the senate of the United States by Senator Guin, who was associated with Alexander Majors and Daniel E. Phelps in transportation matters. They conceived the project of reducing the time between the Pacific Coast and the States by the establishment of an express, from St. Joseph, on the Missouri river, to Sacramento in California, a distance of about two thousand miles, which was to carry special business mails, together with light and valuable express matter, by means of ponies, ridden by young men rapidly for short distances, between the two points. Of course, this scheme involved an immense expenditure for stations all along the route, horses and men to ride them, and all other elements that would necessarily enter into the scheme. The matter was discussed fully at both ends of the route, and found many advocates and much opposition. The most experienced plainsmen and mountaineers pronounced it impracticable, on account of the dangers to be met with, and the opinion was expressed that no package risked on this line would ever reach its destination, and that all the riders would be murdered before a test could be made. Sense and experience seemed to uphold these views. It must be remembered that the whole distance was a wilderness of desert and mountain ranges, little known, and infested with the most savage Indian tribes on the continent, the relations of which with the whites were either unsettled or hostile. But, nothing daunted, the projectors decided to carry out their design, win or lose. They purchased six hundred Texas bronchos, built all the necessary stations, employed all the men required to operate and defend them, and secured seventy-five riders from the adventurous men found on the borders. The wages paid the riders were from $125 to $150 a month, with rations, and singular as it may seem to people of to-day, these positions were much sought for. Danger among this class of men has an irresistible fascination, and writing about it recalls an incident which verifies the assertion fully. When I lived in Carson City, Nev., the office of sheriff of Ormsby county, in which Carson was situated, was the most coveted position in the gift of the people, and it was well known that there never was an incumbent of it who had not died in his boots.